How to Translate a Video with AI in 2026 (Step-by-Step)
May 17, 2026 · Updated September 30, 2026 · 7 min read
To translate a video with AI, upload the finished cut to an AI video translator, choose one target language per run, and check the result against a language QA checklist before you publish. On AI Growth Kit that tool is the Video Translator: 25 target languages, files up to 30 minutes, and 2 credits per second — $2.94 to $5.40 per minute of video, per language, depending on how you buy credits.
First, decide what “translated” means
- Translated subtitles. Viewers hear the original speaker and read the target language. The original voice stays, a wrong line is a quick text fix, and it works for people watching with the sound off. On AI Growth Kit, that's the Subtitler with a translation language selected.
- A translated video. A new MP4 in which the speech is in the target language, for viewers who won't read subtitles. You can't edit a single line afterwards — a fix means another run. On AI Growth Kit, that's the Video Translator.
Both cost the same on AI Growth Kit, 2 credits per second, so choose by audience rather than price. You can also combine them: translate the video, then run the Subtitler on the result for sound-off viewers.
Step by step with the Video Translator
- Lock the edit first. Translate the final cut. Any change afterwards means paying for another run in every language.
- Upload the file — MP4, MOV or WebM, up to 30 minutes. The form reads the duration and shows the exact credit cost before you submit.
- Choose the target language. There are 25: English (US and UK), Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Spanish (Spain and Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Malay, Filipino, Vietnamese and Thai. There's no source-language setting; you only pick the target.
- Submit. Credits are deducted when the job starts and refunded in full if it fails.
- Download it from My tasks. The page refreshes every 5 seconds. Save the MP4 once it's done — the tasks page notes that output files can age out of storage.
- Run the QA checklist below before anything goes live.
- Repeat for each language. One job produces one language, so five languages means five runs and five times the credits.
The language QA checklist
AI translation fails in predictable places. Check every language against this list — with a native speaker for anything you'll pay to promote.
- Names and brand terms. Products, people and places should come out the way you intend. Decide up front which terms stay in English.
- Numbers, units and dates. Prices, percentages, dates and measurements must survive intact. Watch decimal commas (1,5 in German is 1.5 in English), currency symbols, and whether miles or ounces need converting for the market.
- Consistent terminology. Keep a short glossary so a feature has the same name in every video.
- Formality. tú or usted, du or Sie, tu or vous, and the politeness levels of Japanese and Korean change how your brand sounds. Pick one register per market and check it holds throughout.
- The right regional variant. Spain and Latin American Spanish, Brazilian and European Portuguese, Mandarin and Cantonese differ in vocabulary and tone. The Video Translator lists them as separate targets — pick the one your audience actually speaks.
- Meaning, via back-translation. Transcribe ten lines of the output, machine-translate them back into the source language with a different tool, and compare. Any line whose meaning drifted goes to a native speaker.
- Idioms and humor. Wordplay rarely survives, and a literal “break a leg” is nonsense in most languages.
- Length and pacing. Translations into European languages usually run longer than the English — IBM's localization guidelines, cited by the W3C, put the expansion at about 130% for longer passages. Listen for rushed delivery and for sentences that no longer line up with the shot they describe.
- On-screen text. Titles, lower thirds, prices and product UI in the picture are part of the image. If they're in the source language, decide whether to replace them in your editor or cover them with subtitles.
- Claims, offers and legal lines. Discounts, guarantees, health or financial claims and disclaimers need a human sign-off for each market.
- A full watch with headphones. No untranslated leftovers, no clipped sentence endings, and audio levels consistent with the original.
Run the review like an editor
A checklist only helps if findings turn into fixes. For each language, keep a sheet with one row per problem: timestamp, what's said, what it should say, and the type of issue — name, number, meaning, tone or timing. Two passes catch more than one: first read a transcript of the output (any speech-to-text tool will do) for names, numbers and meaning, then watch the video once for tone and timing.
If the sheet only holds cosmetic notes, publish. If it holds meaning or claim errors, switch that language to subtitles, where every fix is a text edit — or, if you can re-record the source, simplify the problem lines (short, literal sentences translate more predictably than idioms) and run that language again.
What it costs
The Video Translator charges 2 credits per second of input video. Here's what that works out to at three of the rates on our pricing page:
| Video length | Credits | Starter Pack rate ($9 / 200) | Power Pack rate ($59 / 1,800) | Pro plan rate ($49 / 2,000 a month) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 seconds | 60 | $2.70 | $1.97 | $1.47 |
| 1 minute | 120 | $5.40 | $3.93 | $2.94 |
| 5 minutes | 600 | $27.00 | $19.67 | $14.70 |
| 30 minutes (maximum) | 3,600 | $162.00 | $118.00 | $88.20 |
Per-language cost at each option's per-credit rate. Packs and plans are bought whole, so round up to what you actually purchase.
A worked example: a 60-second ad in five languages is 5 × 120 = 600 credits — exactly one month of the Starter plan ($19 for 600 credits). The 20 free credits you get at sign-up cover a 10-second test, with no watermark. Translated subtitles on the Subtitler cost the same 2 credits per second.
What the Video Translator doesn't do
- No script or translation editor — you can't review or correct the text before the video renders.
- No glossary or “don't translate” list for brand terms.
- No settings beyond the target language: no source-language field and no voice or style options.
- One language per job, and a 30-minute cap per file.
- One MP4 per job, with no separate subtitle file. Run the Subtitler on the translated video if you need captions too.
If you need to control the wording line by line, go the subtitle route below instead.
The do-it-yourself route (subtitles only)
Fine with translated subtitles and comfortable in a terminal? You can build them for almost nothing:
- Transcribe to SRT with OpenAI's open-source Whisper, free on your own machine (it needs Python and FFmpeg):
whisper video.mp4 --model turbo --output_format srt
OpenAI's hosted Whisper API costs $0.006 per minute as of September 30, 2026, with uploads capped at 25 MB. - Translate the text, not the timecodes. Give the SRT to a machine translation tool or an LLM and tell it to keep the numbering and timestamps unchanged. Whisper's own translate mode only outputs English.
- Run the QA checklist above, then re-split any line longer than 42 characters.
- Burn it in or upload it — the FFmpeg and HandBrake steps are in our guide to burned-in subtitles.
When to bring in people
Treat AI output as a draft whenever money or reputation is attached. At minimum, get a native speaker's pass on paid ads, product launches, anything with legal, medical or financial claims, and content built on humor or wordplay. For internal training, support videos and everyday social clips, the checklist above catches most problems. For planning several markets at once, see how to localize marketing videos with AI.
Try it
Upload your final cut to the Video Translator — the credit cost appears as soon as you choose the file — or compare credit packs and plans on pricing.